Spatio-temporal analysis of land use/land cover change dynamics in Paraguai/Jauquara Basin, Brazil

Although global climate change is receiving considerable attention, the loss of biodiversity worldwide continues. In this study, dynamics of land use/land cover (LULC) change in the Paraguai/Jauquara Basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil, were investigated. Two analyses were performed using R software. The first was a comparative study of LULC among the LULC classes at the polygon scale, and the second was a spatio-temporal analysis of moving polygons restricted to the agricultural regions in terms of topology, size, distance, and direction of change. The data consisted of Landsat images captured in 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2016 and processed using ArcGIS software. The proposed analytical approach handled complex data structures and allowed for a deeper understanding of LULC change over time. The results showed that there was a statistically significant change from regions of natural vegetation to pastures, agricultural regions, and land for other uses, accompanied by a significant trend of expansion of agricultural regions, appearing to stabilize from 2005. Furthermore, different patterns of LULC change were found according to soil type and elevation. In particular, the purple latosol soil type presented the highest expansion indexes since 2001, and the elevated agricultural areas have been expanding and/or stabilizing since 1997.